Joan BlondellFilmography

Hollywood Bloopers

Synopsis: It's nice to know that some of the greatest of the movie stars, while doing some of the most famous and best of Hollywood movies, have feet of clay like the rest of us. This set of outtakes lets us see the human side of celebrities like Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Kirk Douglas, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney Read More

The Rebels

Synopsis: The Rebels was the second "Operation Prime Time" miniseries to be based on author John Jakes' Kent Family Chronicles (the first was The Bastard). The saga of Philip Kent (Andrew Stevens), illegitimate son of a British blueblood, picks up with Kent fighting in the Continental Army during the Read More

The Champ

Actors: Jon Voight, Faye Dunaway, Rick Schroder, Jack Warden, Arthur Hill, Strother Martin

Synopsis: Billy (Jon Voight) is on the road with his son T.J. (Ricky Schroder), fighting low-end boxing matches for drinking money before moving on to the next town for another match. When his ex-wife (and T.J.'s mother) Annie (Faye Dunaway) shows up, it's to tell him that she wants custody of the boy. She Read More

Grease

Actors: John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway, Didi Conn, Eve Arden

Synopsis: "Grease," said the poster and the Barry Gibb song, "is the word." Transferring its setting from Chicago to sunny California, and adding a dash of disco to the ersatz '50s score, producer Allan Carr and director Randal Kleiser turned this long-running Jim Jacobs - Warren Casey Broadway smash into Read More

The Glove

Actors: John Saxon, Roosevelt Grier, Joanna Cassidy, Joan Blondell, Jack Carter

Synopsis: In this actioner, bounty hunter Sam Kellough, who is also an ex-cop, and an ex-ballplayer, is out to earn the $20,000 reward for the capture of Victor Hale, a psychotic killer wanted for beating a prison guard to death with a "riot glove." The villain is not as horrible as he seems. When the Read More

Battered

Actors: Karen Grassle, LeVar Burton, Mike Farrell, Chip Fields, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: Battered concentrates upon three female victims of spousal abuse. Chip Fields is the new wife of struggling young Levar Burton. Joan Blondell is the alcoholic middle-aged spouse of the equally bibilous Howard Duff. And Karen Grassle (who cowrote the screenplay) is married to Ivy leaguer Mike Farrell Read More

The Baron

Synopsis: A big daddy in the underworld is betrayed and vows to settle up. There's lots of action in this big-city streets tale. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Opening Night

Actors: Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, John Cassavetes, Joan Blondell, Paul Stewart

Synopsis: John Cassavetes' Opening Night stars Gena Rowlands (Mrs. Cassavetes) as end-of-tether Broadway actress Myrtle Gordon. She is about to open in a play written by her old friend Sarah Goode (Joan Blondell), but a series of pre-show setbacks and disasters threaten to destroy not only the production Read More

Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood

Actors: Bruce Dern, Madeline Kahn, Art Carney, Phil Silvers, Ron Leibman

Synopsis: This spoof makes fun of a certain famous German shepherd movie star from the 1920s. The mayhem begins when the head honcho of a financially struggling studio turns a lost dog into a legend. The story features a number of old stars making cameo appearances. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Death at Love House

Actors: Kate Jackson

Synopsis: In this made-for-TV film, a screenwriter (Robert Wagner) begins writing the biography of the dead movie queen who had a brief affair with his father. After work on the project has commenced, he becomes obsessed with her spirit and gets a response from the other side of the grave. ~ John Bush, All Read More

Winner Take All

Synopsis: In this drama, a gambling-addicted housewife resorts to stealing from the family savings account to feed her obsession. Trouble ensues when her husband finds out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Dead Don't Die

Actors: Reggie Nalder, Ray Milland

Synopsis: This interesting made-for-TV period gangster-horror piece -- written by Psycho author Robert Bloch -- stars George Hamilton as a military man in 1930s Chicago who pounds the pavement in search of answers after his brother's wrongful execution. His investigations plunge him into a dark world even Read More

Three Comedies

Synopsis: This comedy is comprised of three vignettes involving a school psychiatrist, a pair of police sergeants, and a beleaguered father. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Support Your Local Gunfighter

Actors: James Garner, Suzanne Pleshette, Jack Elam, Joan Blondell, Harry Morgan

Synopsis: This Western action/comedy is told in the same tongue-in-cheek manner as its predecessor, Support Your Local Sheriff. Goldie (Marie Windsor), a madam, is a formidable woman, and Latigo Smith (James Garner) knows perfectly well that his disreputable ways will be trimmed considerably should she Read More

The Phynx

Actors: Michael Miller, Ray Chippeway, Dennis Larden, Lonny Stevens, Lou Antonio

Synopsis: Have you ever longed for the day when James Brown, Martha Raye, and Col. Harland Sanders would appear in a movie together? Well, that's barely the tip of the improbable casting iceberg in this bizarre cold-war spoof. The leaders of the American intelligence organization the S.S.A. ("Super Secret Read More

Big Daddy

Synopsis: Voodoo, hungry 'gators, and love abound in this Z-grade exploitationer set within the steamy Florida Everglades. There a man tries to save his gal from a rival. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Anatomy of a Crime

Synopsis: Anatomy of a Crime is comprised of two episodes from the 1968-69 TV series The Outsider. Darren McGavin earns top billing as David Ross, an ex-cop who became a private eye after cooling his heels in prison on a trumped-up murder charge. Ever on the outside looking in, Ross only accepts case from Read More

Here Come the Brides [TV Series]

Synopsis: Robert Brown, David Soul, and Bobby Sherman were the stars of Here Come The Brides, which ran on ABC from September of 1968 until April of 1970, portraying Jason, Joshua, and Jeremy Bolt, respectively. The three brothers, living in Seattle in the year 1865, own nearby Bridal Veil Mountain. Left to Read More

Kona Coast

Actors: Richard Boone, Vera Miles, Joan Blondell, Steve Ihnat, Chips Rafferty

Synopsis: Sam Moran (Richard Boone) is a Honolulu charter-boat captain who leads fishing expeditions in the tropical paradise. When his daughter is found murdered at the party of a wealthy young playboy, he seeks the truth about the murder. Convinced the playboy is guilty, he enlists the help of his friend Read More

Petticoat Junction: Girl of Our Dreams

Synopsis: Joan Blondell guest stars as Florabelle Campbell, who many years ago had been at the center of a romantic rivalry between Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) and Sam Drucker (Frank Cady). Now that Florabelle has returned to Hooterville, Joe and Sam vie for a second chance to win her heart. But thanks to Read More

Stay Away, Joe

Actors: Elvis Presley, Burgess Meredith, Joan Blondell, Katy Jurado, Thomas Gomez

Synopsis: This forgettable comedy finds Joe Lightcloud (Elvis Presley) as a mixed-blood Indian with strong ties to his tribe and his father Charlie (Burgess Meredith). Joe tries to get government assistance for the tribe in exchange for permitting the local congressman to graze cattle on Indian land. Maime (Quentin Dean Read More

Family Affair: Somebody Upstairs

Synopsis: Joan Blondell guests as Laura London, a Mermanesque Broadway musical star who moves into the apartment one floor above Bill's. Both Buffy (Anissa Jones) and Cissy (Kathy Garver) are fascinated by Laura's flamboyant celebrity lifestyle, and before long the girls are dreaming of their own showbiz Read More

Waterhole #3

Actors: James Coburn, Carroll O'Connor, Maggie Blye, Claude Akins, Timothy Carey

Synopsis: "A rootin', tootin', but sincere picture" was the advertising tag for the comedy western Waterhole No. 3. James Coburn plays the likeably amoral hero, who'll go to any lengths to get his mitts on a treasure map. Like his principal rival, renegade confederate cavalryman Claude Akins, Coburn knows Read More

Winchester '73

Actors: Tom Tryon, John Saxon, Dan Duryea, John Drew Barrymore, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: John Drew Barrymore, Joan Blondell, John Dehner, and Dan Duryea star in this made-for-television remake of the 1950 James Stewart Western about a two brothers who both covet the titular repeating rifle. As the dedicated officer and the crafty ex-con face off to determine who will walk away with Read More

The Spy in the Green Hat

Synopsis: In this episode from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. series, the two good guy spies must stop a criminal mastermind from altering the course of the Gulf Stream. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Ride Beyond Vengeance

Actors: Chuck Connors, Michael Rennie, Kathryn Hays, Joan Blondell, Gloria Grahame

Synopsis: Told via flashback by a saloon keeper to a census taker in a tiny Texas town, this brutal, adult-oriented western offers the tale of a drifter who settles down to marry a woman he doesn't love so he can get at her inheritance. When that is exposed, the drifter flees and does not return for eleven Read More

The Blue-Eyed Horse

Synopsis: The Blue-Eyed Horse is an hour-long farce starring Joan Blondell as an inveterate horse player and Ernest Borgnine as her beleaguered husband. The film opens with Borgnine standing before judge Paul Lynde, trying to explain why his wife has disappeared. The police suspect foul play, offering as Read More

The Cincinnati Kid

Actors: Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Ann-Margret, Karl Malden, Tuesday Weld

Synopsis: Steve McQueen stars as the Cincinnati Kid, a crackerjack New Orleans stud poker player. Tired of chicken feed, the Kid decides to challenge The Man (Edward G. Robinson), the reigning poker champ, who is in town for a private game. The Shooter (Karl Malden), another gambling pro, arranges a game Read More

The Lucy Show: Lucy, the Stunt Man

Actors: Joan Blondell, Don Megowan, Eddie Quillan, Lou Krugman, Burt Douglas

Synopsis: As a ploy to get extra money for a leopard-skin jacket, Lucy (Lucille Ball) tells Mooney (Gale Gordon) that her refrigerator is on the blink -- then is forced to destroy the fridge to back up her story. Meanwhile, Lucy's neighbor Joan (Joan Blondell) is dating a Hollywood stuntman who comes up Read More

The Lucy Show: Lucy and Joan

Actors: Joan Blondell, Keith Andes, Queenie Smith, Bill Dungan

Synopsis: With the help of her new neighbor Joan, Lucy tries to line up her handsome acquaintance Brad Collins (Keith Andes) as her date for a fancy dress ball. But there's a slight snag: it seems that there is a Mrs. Collins....Cast as Joan Brenner, veteran actress Joan Blondell makes her first Lucy Show Read More

Bonanza: The Pressure Game

Actors: Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Guy Williams

Synopsis: Kathie Browne makes her third appearance as Adam Cartwright's erstwhile lady friend Laura Dayton. Encouraged by her Aunt Lil (Joan Blondell) to rush Adam into marriage, Laura decides to make her sweetheart jealous by playing up to Adam's cousin Will (Guy Williams). The scheme backfires when Laura Read More

The Twilight Zone: What's in the Box

Actors: William Demarest, Joan Blondell, Sterling Holloway, Herbert Lytton, Sandra Gould

Synopsis: As a repairman (Sterling Holloway) works on his malfunctioning television set, middle-aged TV addict Joe Britt (William Demarest) fusses and fumes, while his wife Phyllis (Joan Blondell) launches another of her nag sessions. Once the repairman leaves, Joe tunes in to his favorite program, only to Read More

Advance to the Rear

Actors: Glenn Ford, Stella Stevens, Melvyn Douglas, Jim Backus, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: Union Colonel Brackenby (Melvyn Douglas) and his second-in-command, Captain Heath (Glenn Ford), attempt to command a rather inept cavalry unit during the Civil War. General Willoughby (Jim Backus) heads them out West on assignment rather than allowing them to foul things up where it counts. They Read More

The Untouchables: The Underground Court

Synopsis: After stealing a million dollars from the burning ocean liner "Morro Castle", Cuban thief Valentine Ferrar is pursued by by both Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) and underworld "judge" Foley (Richard Devon). Seeking a means of escape without detective, Ferrar answers a classified ad from widow Lucy Read More

Angel Baby

Actors: George Hamilton, Mercedes McCambridge, Joan Blondell, Henry Jones, Burt Reynolds, Salome Jens

Synopsis: Based on Jenny Angel, a novel by Elise Oaks Barber, Angel Baby is a gloves-off study of the faith-healing racket. The title character, played by Salome Jens, is a mute whose speech is ostensibly restored by Bible-thumper George Hamilton. Angel Baby is then exploited on the evangelical circuit by Read More

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Actors: Jayne Mansfield, Tony Randall, Betsy Drake, Joan Blondell, Mickey Hargitay, John Williams

Synopsis: Jayne Mansfield recreated her starmaking stage role in this film adaptation of George Axelrod's Broadway comedy. Mansfield plays a Monroe-like movie queen whom adman Tony Randall hopes to sign for a product endorsement. Through a fluke, the press believes that Randall is having an affair with Read More

Lizzie

Actors: Eleanor Parker, Richard Boone, Joan Blondell, Hugo Haas, Ric Roman

Synopsis: Though his staunchest supporters may disagree, Lizzie is arguably director Hugo Haas' best film. Adapted from Shirley Jackson's The Bird's Nest, the film is a tour de force for Eleanor Parker, who plays the schizophrenic title character. Depending on the circumstances, Lizzie adopts one of three Read More

The Amazing Colossal Man

Actors: Glenn Langan, Cathy Downs, William Hudson, James Seay, Larry Thor

Synopsis: A "Shock Theater" perennial since it was first released to television in the early 1960s (stretch-framed to pad out its running time), The Amazing Colossal Man is firmly in the "So Bad It's Good" category. While overseeing the atomic tests in the Nevada desert, Army colonel Glenn Langan is exposed Read More

Desk Set

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Gig Young, Joan Blondell, Dina Merrill

Synopsis: Based on the Broadway play by Robert Fryer and Lawrence Carr, Desk Set represents the eighth screen teaming of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn plays the head of a TV network research department; Tracy plays an efficiency expert, hired to modernize Hepburn's operation. When Tracy has a Read More

This Could Be the Night

Actors: Jean Simmons, Paul Douglas, Anthony Franciosa, Julie Wilson, Neile Adams, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: A rare comedy effort by director Robert Wise, This Could Be the Night is based on a series of short stories Cordelia Baird Gross. Jean Simmons stars as Anne Leeds, a prim, proper and very level-headed grade-school teacher who takes a night job as secretary to rough-and-tumble nightclub owner Rocco Read More

The Opposite Sex

Actors: June Allyson, Joan Collins, Dolores Gray, Jeff Richards, Ann Sheridan, Ann Miller, Leslie Nielsen, Harry James, Dick Shawn, Jim Backus

Synopsis: The Opposite Sex is an opulent musical remake of Clare Booth Luce's The Women (1939). June Allyson stars in the old Norma Shearer role, playing the virtuous wife who loses her husband to scheming Joan Collins (as the Joan Crawford character). At first agreeing to a divorce, June decides to win Read More

Fireside Theatre: Sergeant Sullivan Speaking

Sergeant Sullivan Speaking

The Blue Veil

Actors: Jane Wyman, Charles Laughton, Joan Blondell, Richard Carlson, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: The Blue Veil was the single most successful effort from the production team of Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna. Jane Wyman pulls out all the emotional stops as a young Frenchwoman named Louise, who, after losing her husband and child in WW I, devotes the rest of her life to selflessly caring for Read More

For Heaven's Sake

Actors: Clifton Webb, Joan Bennett, Robert Cummings, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: When the continual bickering of a married couple threatens to tear them apart, an angel is sent to help them get back together and start making babies in this fantasy. The husband is a busy producer for theatrical shows so the angel disguises himself as a wealthy Westerner looking to invest in a Read More

Christmas Eve

Actors: George Raft, George Brent, Randolph Scott, Joan Blondell, Virginia Field

Synopsis: This episodic holiday film centers around a rich spinster aunt whose greedy nephew is attempting legal action to take her estate. Before he makes a final decision, a caring judge tells the spinster that she can rally together the three foster children she raised to help her keep the estate, he Read More

Nightmare Alley

Actors: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Nightmare Alley is the sordid tale of a conniving young man who, in the words of one of the film's supporting characters, ends up low because he aimed so high. Drifter Tyrone Power sweet-talks his way into a job as barker for a rundown carnival. He is fascinated by an illegal side-show attraction Read More

The Corpse Came C.O.D.

Actors: George Brent, Joan Blondell, Adele Jergens, Jim Bannon, Leslie Brooks

Synopsis: Reminiscent of the classic "screwball" comedy-mysteries of the prewar years, Columbia's The Corpse Came C.O.D stars Warner Bros. alumni George Brent and Joan Blondell as rival Hollywood-based reporters Joe Medford and Rosemary Durant. When movie star Mona Harrison (Adele Jergens) receives a dead Read More

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Actors: Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan, Peggy Ann Garner

Synopsis: One-time movie song-and-dance man James Dunn won an Academy Award for his "comeback" performance in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Based on the best-selling novel by Betty Smith, the film relates the trials and tribulations of a turn-of-the-century Brooklyn tenement family. The father, Dunn, is a Read More

Adventure

Actors: Clark Gable, Greer Garson, Joan Blondell, Thomas Mitchell, Tom Tully

Synopsis: A middle-aged Clark Gable returned from active duty in World War II to star in this MGM release that was heavily advertised as his big comeback. Gable is Harry Patterson, the bosun mate on a merchant marine vessel, a tough sailor and fighter with the proverbial girl in every port. But while in a Read More

Don Juan Quilligan

Actors: William Bendix, Joan Blondell, Phil Silvers, Anne Revere, B.S. Pully

Synopsis: In this comedy, a barge captain with an Electra complex marries two women. He married the first because she laughed like his late mother. He married the other because she cooks like his mom. He soon finds himself in over his head. A good friend helps extricate him by devising an ingenious plot. Read More

Cry Havoc

Actors: Margaret Sullavan, Ann Sothern, Joan Blondell, Fay Bainter, Marsha Hunt

Synopsis: Allen R. Kerward's flagwaving stage play Proof thro' the Night was vastly improved in its screen adaptation, which was retitled Cry Havoc. Margaret Sullavan (making her first screen appearance in two years), Joan Blondell and Ann Southern are among the appropriately deglamorized actresses playing Read More

Topper Returns

Actors: Joan Blondell, Roland Young, Carole Landis, Billie Burke, Dennis O'Keefe

Synopsis: The third of producer Hal Roach's Topper films, Topper Returns eschews the frothy "screwball" format of the first two in favor of an "old dark house" comedy-mystery. Roland Young returns as banker Cosmo Topper, who gallantly offers a lift to pretty hitchhikers Gail Richards (Joan Blondell) and Ann Read More

Lady for a Night

Actors: Joan Blondell, John Wayne, Philip Merivale, Ray Middleton, Blanche Yurka, Edith Barrett

Synopsis: The unlikely combination of John Wayne and Joan Blondell adds a bit of vinegar and spice to the so-so costume drama Lady for a Night. Blondell is cast as Jenny Blake, owner of the Memphis Belle-not a WW2 bomber, but a gambling ship moored just outside New Orleans. Jenny's partner and erstwhile Read More

Model Wife

Actors: Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Charlie Ruggles, Lee Bowman, Ruth Donnelly

Synopsis: The real-life marriage between Dick Powell and Joan Blondell was already on the rocks when they costarred in Model Wife. The story is "Working Girl Plot No. 6": Blondell's employer frowns upon married women working. She's married to Powell. The marriage must remain secret. The boss has a "thing" Read More

Three Girls About Town

Actors: Joan Blondell, Binnie Barnes, Janet Blair, John Howard, Robert Benchley

Synopsis: Faith, Hope and Charity motivate the wacky storyline of Columbia's Three Girls About Town--or to be more exact, gorgeous sisters Faith, Hope and Charity Banner, played respectively by Binnie Barnes, Joan Blondell and Janet Blair. Faith and Hope are gainfully employed as New York hotel hostesses Read More

Two Girls on Broadway

Actors: Lana Turner, Joan Blondell, George Murphy, Kent Taylor, Richard Lane

Synopsis: Two Girls on Broadway is an updated reworking of MGM's Oscar-winning 1929 musical Broadway Melody. Joan Blondell and Lana Turner play a vaudeville "sister" act, slightly more talented than the similar duo in Broadway Melody. The twosome have sworn never to break up, but that was before hoofer George Murphy Read More

I Want a Divorce

Actors: Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Frank Fay, Jessie Ralph

Synopsis: Ironically, the marriage between Dick Powell and Joan Blondell was beginning to fall apart at the time they co-starred in Paramount's I Want a Divorce. The film manages to sustain two plotlines, with newlyweds Alan and Geraldine MacNally (Powell and Blondell) beginning to have second thoughts Read More

Brother Orchid

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, Donald Crisp, Ralph Bellamy

Synopsis: Edward G. Robinson plays orchid-loving gangster Little John Sarto, who aspires to "real class." During a power struggle with usurping mobster Jack Buck (Humphrey Bogart), Sarto is taken for a one-way ride, but he escapes his would-be assassins and hides out in a monastery overseen by Brother Read More

The Amazing Mr. Williams

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Joan Blondell, Clarence Kolb, Ruth Donnelly, Edward S. Brophy

Synopsis: One review of Columbia's The Amazing Mr. Williams referred to its private-detective hero as "slap happy". As played by Melvyn Douglas, the giddy Kenny Williams is all that and more. On the eve of his wedding to longtime fiance Maxine Carroll (Joan Blondell), Williams is obliged to solve three Read More

Off the Record

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Joan Blondell, Bobby Jordan, Alan Baxter

Synopsis: Pat O'Brien is his usual likably obnoxious self in the Warner Bros. newspaper yarn Off the Record. While trying to smash a numbers racket, star reporter Breezy Elliot (O'Brien) takes tough young numbers-runner Mickey Fallon (Bobby Jordan) under his wing. The kid gets a job as a copy boy, earning Read More

The Kid from Kokomo

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Wayne Morris, Joan Blondell, May Robson, Jane Wyman

Synopsis: Banking on the popularity of the Warner Bros.' boxing saga Kid Galahad (37), the studio rushed into production with another, similarly titled prizefight picture. In Kid from Kokomo, Wayne Morris once more plays a small-town rube who's good with his fists. The "kid" becomes convinced that a drunken Read More

Good Girls Go to Paris

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Joan Blondell, Alan Curtis, Joan Perry, Isabel Jeans

Synopsis: Spunky Joan Blondell is practically the whole show in the diverting comedy Good Girls Go to Paris. Blondell is cast as ambitious college-campus waitress Jenny Swanson, who yearns to see the sights in Gay Paree. She gets her chance by latching onto British exchange professor Ronald Brooke (Melvyn Douglas Read More

East Side of Heaven

Actors: Bing Crosby, Joan Blondell, Mischa Auer, Irene Hervey, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Bing Crosby plays a tune-happy cab driver who finds himself the reluctant recipient of an abandoned baby. Together with his roommate, dour doorman Mischa Auer, Crosby offers care and shelter to the infant until he can locate the parents. The baby brings in some unwanted publicity for Crosby, which Read More

There's Always a Woman

Actors: Joan Blondell, Melvyn Douglas, Mary Astor, Frances Drake, Jerome Cowan

Synopsis: Capitalizing on the success of MGM's Thin Man series, virtually every major studio of the 1930s came up with its own husband-and-wife detective team. Columbia's entry was There's Always a Woman, starring Melvyn Douglas and Joan Blondell. Douglas and Blondell are the married proprietors of an Read More

The Perfect Specimen

Actors: Errol Flynn, Joan Blondell, Hugh Herbert, Edward Everett Horton, Dick Foran

Synopsis: Based on a popular novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams, this screwball comedy stars Errol Flynn in the title-role, the heir to an industrial fortune kept hidden from the world by his imperious grandmother (May Robson). Intrigued by the secrecy, peppy Joan Blondell literally crashes the estate to Read More

The King and the Chorus Girl

Actors: Fernand Gravey, Joan Blondell, Edward Everett Horton, Alan Mowbray, Jane Wyman

Synopsis: Groucho Marx received co-writer credit (along with his old friend Norman Krasna) for King and the Chorus Girl, though very little Marxian wit is in evidence. What remains is a fun but forgettable comedy about a European monarch (Fernand Gravet) who woos and wins a down-to-earth American chorine (Joan Blondell Read More

Back in Circulation

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Joan Blondell, Margaret Lindsay, John Litel, Ben Welden

Synopsis: In this newsroom drama, a tabloid's ace reporter's investigations lead to a chorine's conviction for murdering her husband. The trouble begins when the reporter digs a little deeper and realizes that the showgirl is really innocent. Now, despite the objections of her editor, the reporter must Read More

Stand-In

Actors: Leslie Howard, Joan Blondell, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Mowbray, Marla Shelton

Synopsis: Bookish bank employee Atterbury Dodd (Leslie Howard) is ordered to investigate the near-bankrupt Colossal Studios in Hollywood, to see if the firm is any sort of good risk. Dodd's first brush with Tinseltown's cuckoo atmosphere occurs when he takes a room in a boarding house for extras, where all Read More

The Last Gangster

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, James Stewart, Rosa Stradner, Lionel Stander, Douglas Scott

Synopsis: Edward G. Robinson offers an excellent turn as a crime lord obsessed with the welfare of his son in this melodramatic crime story. The lad is born while the notorious Robinson serves 10 years. Unfortunately, the press hound the babies mother and constantly derider her until a kinder reporter takes Read More

Three Men on a Horse

Actors: Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Carolyn Hughes, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: All but forgotten today, the George Abbott-John Cecil Holm stage comedy Three Men on a Horse was once a staple of the community theatre and summer-stock circuit (a 1958 TV production starred no less than Johnny Carson). Though a faithful adaptation of the Broadway original, this 1936 film version Read More

Colleen

Actors: Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Jack Oakie, Joan Blondell, Hugh Herbert

Synopsis: The titular colleen is Ruby Keeler, hired to manage a dress shop by wealthy Dick Powell. Keeler is the replacement for slatternly Joan Blondell, who'd been assigned the job by Powell's philandering father (Hugh Herbert). With Powell and Keeler at the helm, it's no time at all before the musical Read More

Sons O' Guns

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Joan Blondell, Beverly Roberts, Eric Blore, Winifred Shaw

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, a pacifistic song-and-dance man is compelled to don a military uniform for one of his acts. Before he can blink, he finds himself fighting in Germany. Later he is tossed into jail after being accused of being an enemy spy. He escapes and somehow manages to capture a Read More

Gold Diggers of 1937

Actors: Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Victor Moore, Glenda Farrell, Lee Dixon

Synopsis: Those beautiful Busby Berkeley babes are back at work, seeking financial backing for a Broadway show. Salvation comes from a meek hypochondriac (Victor Moore) who'd rather the girls get his insurance money than his murderous business partners. Dick Powell isn't the male star of the show, but does Read More

Stage Struck

Actors: Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Warren William, Frank McHugh, Jeanne Madden

Synopsis: Stage Struck is one of the least known of Busby Berkeley's Warner Bros. musicals, chiefly because there are no major production numbers. The plot is that old saw about young, unknown hopefuls who put on a Big Show and become overnight stars. Alas, the magic didn't work for leading lady Jeanne Madden Read More

Bullets or Ballots

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Barton MacLane, Frank McHugh, Joseph King, Humphrey Bogart, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: Two-fisted New York police detective Edward G. Robinson is so volatile that he manages to get himself thrown off the force in disgrace. The local gangsters are delighted, in that Robinson had been breathing down their necks. When Robinson goes to crime boss Barton MacLaine insisting that he's Read More

Broadway Gondolier

Actors: Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Adolphe Menjou, Louise Fazenda, William Gargan

Synopsis: A tuneful taxi driver secretly works to achieve his dream of becoming a radio singer in this musical comedy. One day he gives a radio station secretary a lift. She prattles on about a sponsor's new contest. The sponsor, a prominent cheese company, is looking for a singing gondolier to participate Read More

We're in the Money

Actors: Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, Hugh Herbert, Ross Alexander, Hobart Cavanaugh

Synopsis: Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell, the female Laurel and Hardy of Warner Bros., share top billing in We're in the Money. This time Blondell and Farrell are cast respectively as Ginger and Dixie, intrepid process-servers for goofy lawyer Homer Bronson (Hugh Herbert). Things go from the ridiculous to Read More

The Traveling Saleslady

Actors: Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, William Gargan, Hugh Herbert, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: In this comedy, a toothpaste magnate's mischievous daughter, tired of her father's traditional ways of conducting business, joins forces with her father's rival and a crazy inventor. Together they create "Cocktail Toothpaste." The new concoction tastes like whiskey in the morning, a martini at Read More

Miss Pacific Fleet

Actors: Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, Warren Hull

Synopsis: Based on Frederick Hazlett Brennan's play Battleship Gertie, Miss Pacific Fleet is short and snappy "gobs and gals" affair. At the urging of gold-digging showgirls Gloria Foy (Joan Blondell) and Mae O'Brien (Glenda Farrell), goofy promoter Augustus Frietag (Hugh Herbert) comes up with a "Miss Read More

I've Got Your Number

Actors: Joan Blondell, Pat O'Brien, Glenda Farrell, Allen Jenkins, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Completed just before the Production Code went into effect, I've Got Your Number is delightfully racy, risque entertainment. Pat O'Brien is all wisecracks and left hooks as Terry, a troubleshooter for the New York telephone company. Terry puts his talents -- and his eavesdropping skill -- to good Read More

Kansas City Princess

Actors: Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, Robert Armstrong, Hugh Herbert, Osgood Perkins

Synopsis: Kansas City Princess came at the tail end of the "gold-digger" movie cycle. The inevitable Joan Blondell plays Rosie, a saucy-eyed manicurist who takes it on the lam when she loses a diamond entrusted to her by her gangster boyfriend Dynamite (Robert Armstrong). With nary a dime between them Read More

He Was Her Man

Actors: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Victor Jory, Frank Craven, Harold Huber

Synopsis: In this crime drama, Flicker Hayes (James Cagney) is a safecracker who has just been released following a stretch in prison; after his last job, his partners Dan Curley (Bradley Page) and Red Deering (Ralf Harolde) set him up, and now Hayes is determined to get revenge. Fooling them into believing Read More

Smarty

Actors: Joan Blondell, Warren William, Edward Everett Horton, Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd

Synopsis: A battling married couple come to blows and afterwards the battered wife seeks legal council. This drama chronicles the events that take place afterwards. Her lawyer immediately suggests she divorce her pugnacious husband. During the proceedings she and the attorney fall in love and afterward Read More

Dames

Actors: Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, ZaSu Pitts, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: As the title song says, you go to those shows to see those beautiful dames--and there's dames aplenty in this 1934 Busby Berkeley extravaganza. The wisp of a plot is motivated by one Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert), a silly millionaire who spearheads a national anti-fun movement. Ounce's distant cousin Dick Powell Read More

Convention City

Actors: Joan Blondell, Adolphe Menjou, Dick Powell, Mary Astor, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: Practically every member of the Warner Bros. stock company except Glenda Farrell shows up in the rowdy, raunchy pre-Code comedy Convention City. Joan Blondell plays Nancy Lorraine, an enterprising lass who is employed by a big-city hotel as a "hostess" for out-of-town conventioneers. She spends a Read More

Havana Widows

Actors: Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, Guy Kibbee, Lyle Talbot, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: The wonderful Warner Bros. stock company goes through its customarily breezy paces in Havana Widows. Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell star as Mae and Sadie, a couple of hard-boiled dames who support themselves by shaking down wealthy and susceptible older men in Havana. Their current target is Read More

Goodbye Again

Actors: Joan Blondell, Genevieve Tobin, Helen Chandler, Ruth Donnelly, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: Famous author Kenneth Bixby (Warren William) would like to jump-start his romance with ex-sweetheart Julie (Genevieve Tobin). There are, however, at least two people who'd prefer that Bixby stick to writing and stay away from Julie. One is Julie's husband Harvey Wilson (Hugh Herbert); the other is Read More

Gold Diggers of 1933

Actors: Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell

Synopsis: The second talkie version of the Avery Hopwood's theatrical war-horse The Golddiggers of Broadway, Gold Diggers of 1933 was the second of three back-to-back 1933 Warner Bros. musicals benefiting from the genius of Busby Berkeley. The basic plot is retained from the Hopwood play: Showgirls Joan Blondell Read More

Broadway Bad

Actors: Joan Blondell, Ricardo Cortez, Ginger Rogers, Adrienne Ames, Allen Vincent

Synopsis: Broadway Bad stars Joan Blondell as a wisecracking but goodhearted chorus girl whose husband (Ricardo Cortez) is an abusive lout. Blondell's plight makes the headlines, which results in an upswing in her career. Rather than wallow in self-pity, she trades on the publicity to become a star, while Read More

Lawyer Man

Actors: William Powell, Joan Blondell, Helen Vinson, Alan Dinehart, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: William Powell is a poor East Side lawyer who works his way up the ladder to assistant prosecutor. He isn't too particular how he uses and misuses the law, much to the dismay of his faithful secretary (Joan Blondell). Powell's downfall comes when he falls for a shady lady (Claire Dodd) who Read More

Footlight Parade

Actors: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: The last--and to some aficionados, the best--of choreographer Busby Berkeley's three Warner Bros. efforts of 1933, Footlight Parade stars James Cagney as a Broadway musical comedy producer. Cagney is unceremoniously put out of business when talking pictures arrive. To keep his head above water Read More

Blondie Johnson

Actors: Joan Blondell, Chester Morris, Claire Dodd, Allen Jenkins, Earl Foxe, Mae Busch

Synopsis: Set during the Depression, this crime drama centers upon a basically honest girl who is forced into prostitution by circumstance. She then becomes a gangster's moll where she learns a bitter lesson about the criminal life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Union Depot

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Alan Hale, George Rosener

Synopsis: A Grand Hotel derivation set in a major metropolitan train terminal, Union Depot features most of the reliable Warner Bros. stock company. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. stars as a slick thief; Joan Blondell costars as a stranded chorus girl; Alan Hale Sr. is featured as a phony baron absconding with Read More

The Famous Ferguson Case

Actors: Joan Blondell, Tom Brown, Adrienne Dore, Walter Miller, Leslie Fenton

Synopsis: Inspired in part by the sensational Snyder-Gray murder case (which was also the source of The Postman Always Rings Twice), The Famous Ferguson Case casts an unflattering light on the journalist "feeding frenzy" attending such crimes. A wealthy banker named Ferguson is found murdered, and his Read More

The Greeks Had a Word for Them

Actors: Madge Evans, Joan Blondell, Ina Claire, David Manners, Lowell Sherman

Synopsis: Zoë Akins' archetypal "gold-digger" stage comedy The Greeks Had a Word for It was transferred to the screen in 1933, with the "It" changed to "Them" in the title, reportedly at the insistence of over-cautious producer Sam Goldwyn (this became a moot point in the 1940s, when the film was reissued Read More

The Crowd Roars

Actors: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Eric Linden, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: Howard Hawks directed this fast-paced auto racing drama. Joe Greer (James Cagney) is a top-ranked race car driver; his younger brother Eddie (Eric Linden) wants to follow in Joe's footsteps, but Joe knows his brother's reckless side and tries to keep him away from the racer's life. Eddie, however Read More

Miss Pinkerton

Actors: Joan Blondell, George Brent, Mae Madison, John Wray, Ruth Hall

Synopsis: In this murder mystery, a nurse with an unusual eye for detail solves a puzzling case. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Three on a Match

Actors: Joan Blondell, Warren William, Ann Dvorak, Bette Davis, Buster Phelps

Synopsis: Three on a Match covers approximately 13 years in the lives of girlhood chums Mary Keaton (Joan Blondell), Ruth Wescott (Bette Davis) and Vivian Deverse (Ann Dvorak). Having graduated from grammar school together in 1919, the girls stage a reunion ten years later. Hard-boiled Mary is now a chorus Read More

Big City Blues

Actors: Joan Blondell, Eric Linden, Inez Courtney, Evelyn Knapp, Guy Kibbee, Humphrey Bogart

Synopsis: Based on the play New York Town by Ward Morehouse, Mervyn LeRoy directs the black-and-white 1932 comedy drama Big City Blues. A small-town innocent from Indiana, Bud Reeves (Eric Linden) inherits money and goes to New York to get in all sorts of trouble. He meets up with his cousin Gibby (Walter Read More

Make Me a Star

Actors: Stuart Erwin, Joan Blondell, ZaSu Pitts, Ben Turpin, Charles Sellon

Synopsis: Joan Blondell, borrowed for the occasion from Warner Bros., earned top-billing in this delightful Hollywood parable, but the real star is of course Stuart Erwin as the irrepressible grocery clerk Merton Gill. Paramount screenwriters Saul Mintz, Walter De Leon and Arthur Kober based their witty Read More

Central Park

Synopsis: Two small-town youths head for the Big Apple and somehow get mixed up with mobsters during a visit to the title park in this episodic comedy drama filmed on location. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

God's Gift to Women

Actors: Frank Fay, Laura La Plante, Joan Blondell, Charles Winninger, Louise Brooks

Synopsis: God's Gift to Women demonstrated conclusively that Warner Bros. would never make a movie star out of Broadway comedian Frank Fay. Portraying a most unlikely Frenchman, Fay pitches woo at every beautiful woman in sight, but falls in love with none of them. When Cupid genuinely strikes him for the Read More

Blonde Crazy

Actors: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Louis Calhern, Noel Francis, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: Blonde Crazy describes the perpetual mental state of James Cagney. A conniving bellhop, Cagney increases his bank account by using his blonde girlfriend Joan Blondell as a come-on to various "sugar daddies" whom he suckers out of their hard-earned cash. When the pair try their con game in New Read More

Illicit

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, James Rennie, Charles Butterworth, Joan Blondell, Natalie Moorhead, Ricardo Cortez

Synopsis: Few actresses exuded as much raw sensuality as the pre-Production Code Barbara Stanwyck. In Illicit, Anne Vincent (Stanwyck) spends most of her time dressed in a loose-fitting kimono as the mistress of Dick Ives (James Rennie). The couple lives openly in sin because Anne does not believe in Read More

Big Business Girl

Actors: Loretta Young, Frank Albertson, Ricardo Cortez, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: Loretta Young briefly contemplates using her sexual allure to get ahead in business in this sometimes frank but ultimately old-fashioned comedy-drama from Warner Bros. Packing her new husband, bandleader Johnny Saunders (Frank Albertson), off to Paris, Claire McIntyre (Young) sets her sight on her Read More

The Public Enemy

Actors: James Cagney, Edward Woods, Donald Cook, Joan Blondell, Jean Harlow

Synopsis: William Wellman's landmark gangster movie traces the rise and fall of prohibition-era mobster Tom Powers. We are first shown various episodes of Tom's childhood with the corrupting influences of the beer hall, pool parlor, and false friends like minor-league fence Putty Nose. As young adults, Tom (James Cagney Read More

Other Men's Women

Actors: Grant Withers, Mary Astor, Regis Toomey, James Cagney, Fred Kohler, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: William A. Wellman's triangle melodrama "The Steel Highway" -- a title referring to the film's railroad setting -- was changed to the more suggestive Other Men's Women shortly before it's April 19, 1931 New York premiere. Grant Withers and Regis Toomey played lifelong friends and co-workers in Read More

The Reckless Hour

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Conrad Nagel, Walter Byron, H.B. Warner, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: In this drama, a hard-working New York model abandons her family values for the love of a suave, handsome man who offers her the moon, but ends up leaving her with a baby and a very bitter aftertaste. She then becomes cynical, and angry at all men until a sensitive, gentle artist helps her through Read More

Millie

Actors: Helen Twelvetrees, Lilyan Tashman, Robert Ames, Joan Blondell, John Halliday

Synopsis: Yet another variation on the already then-ancient Madame X theme, this early talkie stars Helen Twelvetrees in the title role, a small-town girl marrying a New York City businessman (James Hall). The union produces a daughter, but ends when Millie catches her husband with a mistress (Marie Read More

Night Nurse

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Ben Lyon, Joan Blondell, Charlotte Merriam, Charles Winninger, Clark Gable

Synopsis: William Wellman's Night Nurse survives as a potentially interesting but ultimately unsatisfying melodrama about a nurse discovering evildoings in the household where she is caring for a couple of sick children. Based on a 1930 novel by Dora Macy, Wellman's probe into medical corruption is one of Read More

My Past

Actors: Bebe Daniels, Ben Lyon, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: My Past is based on a novel called Ex-Mistress, a title that was rejected outright by the Hollywood censors. Even so, what transpires on screen is pretty racy for its time, with stage star Dora Macy (Bebe Daniels) enjoying the favors of wealthy bachelor John Thornley (Lewis Stone). When Dora falls Read More

Sinner's Holiday

Actors: Grant Withers, Evelyn Knapp, James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Lucille La Verne

Synopsis: Based on the play Penny Arcade, Sinner's Holiday marked the film debut of James Cagney. After seeing the performance on Broadway, Al Jolson bought the rights to the play and sold it to Warner Bros. under the agreement that both Cagney and co-star Joan Blondell reprise their stage roles for the Read More

The Office Wife

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Hobart Bosworth, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: Illicit office romances provide the basis of this melodrama. The story centers around an older man's secretary who drops her real boyfriend to seduce her boss. When he discovers that his wife has begun fooling around with younger men he lets his secretary have her way. Fortunately, the boss's wife Read More

Son of Hollywood Bloopers

Synopsis: See more mistakes and fumblings of the stars. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Big Breakdowns: Hollywood Bloopers of the 1930's

Synopsis: Warner Brothers was one of the big studios of the 30s and had many talented performers under contract. See some of their most outrageous mistakes, as well as previously unseen shots. ~ All Movie Guide Read More